


A Place in Time

by Liu



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Asexual Character, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Denial of Feelings, Light Angst, M/M, Mick is a mess, References to Depression, Temporarily Unrequited Love, minor mentions of slightest dub-con, non-coldwave-friendly, tagging just to be safe tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 07:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11527695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liu/pseuds/Liu
Summary: His pyromania is not the only reason why Mick keeps staring into the flames.





	A Place in Time

**Author's Note:**

> There is a very slight, non-graphic mention of a situation that could be seen as 'dub-con'. Consider yourselves warned :'D

His pyromania is not the only reason why Mick keeps staring into the flames.

The first time he does it, he’s seventeen, stuck in a juvy with counselors who keep asking him about his feelings, and Mick doesn’t really know what to say. His love of fire is not something he can explain, much less to adults who cannot quite conceal their disapproval of him – or to the other kids, who taunt him about his scars. He takes to wearing long-sleeved shirts, but the laughter doesn’t stop.

There’s a girl; he doesn’t know if he likes her, doesn’t know how that should feel, but she smiles at him without derision and sits with him during meals, and she doesn’t care that the other kids mock her for it. In the years to come, Mick will forget her name, but he will always remember how she slips into his bed one night and puts her clammy, cold hands under his shirt. She strokes his chest and he can hear her chuckling nervously in the dark, whispering that she will let him do whatever he wants.

Her hands slide downwards, across his belly and to the waistband of his sweatpants. He wraps her up in his arms and holds her tight because he wants her to stop touching him like that. He doesn’t know why – he just knows that it coils his stomach into tight, sour knots.

Mick doesn’t sleep that night. In the morning, he sneaks into the counselor’s office and sets it on fire. It earns him solitary for two weeks, but despite the long, unnerving sessions with the angry counselor, all he can feel is relief. The girl is gone when he’s released, and Mick makes himself not think about the whole ordeal.

He’s just turned nineteen when he takes his first step into the Iron Heights. His family is gone by then, and Mick has grown taller and heavier. He’s earned a reputation for being quicker with his fists than his words, and nobody in the juvy would dare mock him now. But prison is a whole another world, with men twice his age and size ready to pick a fight. Mick doesn’t mind those too much – cuts and bruises have never worried him. He tries to keep his head down, and soon, they leave him alone more often than not.

Then, there’s a boy.

He’s Mick’s age, perhaps a few years older, but it doesn’t show in the shape of his skinny shoulders and in the pout of his mouth. Mick doesn’t pay much attention to him – he’s learned by now that these places are not for making friends, even if Mick knew how to do that – but when he stumbles upon the boy being harassed by two old-timers one day, Mick can’t ignore the look of pure terror the boy shoots him. The pretty brown eyes are crying for help, and Mick has never liked bullies who pick on those much smaller than them.

He brawls with the old-timers, gets a broken rib and a loose tooth in return for his misguided heroism before the guard breaks them up. Jeers and taunts greet him when he enters the mess hall after having been patched up by a scowling nurse.

The boy, still pale and very obviously terrified, puts his tray down on the table and sits next to him.

He says ‘thank you’, and Mick growls something non-verbal, his stomach turning. But the boy is not the juvy girl, and Mick berates himself for assuming. He tries his best to ignore the whistling and teasing (and the boy), but the purposeful obliviousness only makes him feel blindsided when the boy approaches him later, with an offer of something he calls ‘quid pro quo’.

Mick has heard of such deals before, protection in exchange for _favors_ , but the very thought of him being a part of something like that makes him physically sick. It’s easy to call the boy names and snarl that Mick is nothing like _that_ , and it’s even easier to whip out his smuggled lighter and stare at the dancing flame whenever the boy tries to talk to him afterwards.

With the memory of the juvy girl, it’s harder to convince himself that’s all there is to it.

In the years to come, Mick gains most of his bulk and his scars. He avoids touching people in any capacity, after a few more misunderstandings where he fails to see the line between ‘friendly’ and ‘yes’, fails to express it in any way that would make him heard and understood. He teams up with Snart, who never jokes about those things that turn Mick’s stomach sour and wobbly: maybe it’s because he thinks Mick a mindless brute, little more than raw muscle to complement Snart’s convoluted brain.

Mick doesn’t mind – he figures out soon enough that fewer people bother him if they believe he’s stupid, or crazy, or unpredictably violent. It also helps that he’s not pretty, not like Snart or his sister, and those two are flirting in each bar enough to draw the attention away from Mick. It’s a good few years, even if they’re not together all the time, and Mick almost manages to forget that nagging unhappy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

But then, Snart has to go and sign them up for a time-traveling quest for madness, confining them to close quarters with a lot of weird strangers. In just a few days, Mick finds himself back in prison – in a Soviet gulag, to be precise – and that’s where everything goes to shit.

Because Mick doesn’t trust Raymond Palmer as far as he could throw him: that bright, bubbly demeanor has to be just a façade for something darker and uglier. Mick doesn’t enjoy that small part of him that wants it to be true – that wants Raymond to really be like that, a little naïve, incredibly optimistic, and just so _good_ that Mick wants to grind his teeth just looking at the man.

He also wants to tease him and spar with him, just to see if that bulk is restricted to fancy gyms or if the guy can throw a punch. And maybe mess up that ridiculous hairstyle a little.

So when Pretty Boy starts a fight with the other prisoners, defending a helpless old guy, Mick is glad for the excuse of a stolen lighter. He stares hard into the flames and pretends that he doesn’t hear Raymond’s grunts as the guy gets the shit kicked out of him, and definitely does _not_ think about another boy in another prison, and where that road led.

He’s still staring into the flames when Raymond comes back, hours later, bruised and bloodied and, perhaps for the first time since they met, angry.

Mick tells him it was none of his business, that the only team he’s on is Snart’s, but he’s glad that Raymond doesn’t know him well enough to see that Mick’s lying through his teeth. The truth is, he’s afraid of Raymond, afraid of what the man would demand if Mick stepped up to help him, if he indulged himself in a friendly pat on the back here and there. Mick wants it, wants it more than he’s wanted to touch someone in a good long while, but he’s learned long ago that it’s not something he can have.

But of course, the stupid Boy Scout defies expectation when he’s the one to take a punch for Mick, not much later, while he’s still hurting from the first fight. He doesn’t have to do it – he’s in the same position as Mick himself, not really helping anyone, just letting himself get hurt.

Later, Snart says that Raymond would take a beating for anyone. He thinks that it will make Mick less appreciative of what Boy Scout did, but in truth, it’s what makes Mick fight for taking Raymond with them even harder.

Because if Raymond would do that for anyone, it means that maybe he _is_ just as foolishly pure as he seems on the surface. And if he would do it for anyone, it also means that he won’t demand any special favors from Mick in turn.

Raymond thanks him later, and Mick thinks back to the prison boy from his past. But there are no demands in Raymond’s eyes, just plain, simple gratitude, and a soft smile that looks pretty even though his lip is still split from the beating. Mick growls about more drinking and less feeling and turns away, but the truth is, it’s his own feelings that seem to be overflowing that night.

It doesn’t get much better later on, when Raymond is the one to pat him on the back after their short trip into the future, the one to acknowledge that Mick could’ve had a good thing going, in 2046. Or at least a _thing_ , a thing that would’ve been his own, without anyone telling him what to do. Mick likes to think that he’s not anyone’s dog, that he makes his own decisions and does whatever the fuck he wants, but sometimes, he feels the sting of the truth behind all his bravado, and he doesn’t like it one bit. Maybe that was the reason why he decided to carry Raymond out of that prison back in Siberia: it’s definitely easier to think of it as no more than his own version of rebellion, doing the exact opposite of what Snart told him to.

It’s easier because Mick doesn’t know how to deal with warm feelings towards anyone, and also because Haircut takes up with the bird girl shortly afterwards, and Mick feels surprisingly conflicted about it, even if he feigns derisive disinterest as best he can. He doesn’t get too much time to mope about it, what with the fast-paced horror-slash-adventure that is time travel; but whatever it is he’s feeling about Raymond and Kendra might be another huge splash into the large cup of hurt that finally overflows when Leonard chooses the ragtag group of make-believe heroes over _Mick_.

He contemplates all of this years, decades later, when he’s sitting in the Waverider’s holding cell, his head still feeling fuzzy from shaking off most of the Time Masters’ brainwashing. Lifetimes have passed for Mick, and just a few days for most of them, and he feels that difference in his bones whenever one of them comes down to the cell to administer their own version of brainwashing and guilt-tripping, to get him to do their bidding once more. Only one of them looks like Mick feels, like he doesn’t quite belong, and Mick remembers hearing something about being stranded in time, but he doesn’t have enough information to guess why it is only Raymond with the haunted shadow in his eyes.

That’s what makes Mick want to try, again. It's not like he’s got better plans, what with the hunters at their heels – he doesn’t particularly want to rejoin the team that was never his, face everyone’s betrayed glares his way. There are moments when he wonders whether the Time Masters didn’t treat him better, aside from the obvious torture; at least those assholes never pretended to be Mick’s _friends_.

But he does try to help: he even offers to keep an eye out when they all want to take a stroll through the ‘Wild West’. Mick valiantly lies to himself that it’s not just because of the hurt look on Haircut’s face when he’s told that they should stay aboard.

He needs a drink, badly, so he beelines for the bar and doesn’t much mind when Sara joins him. He’s always liked Sara’s particular brand of ‘asshole’, the way she’s all flirty smiles one moment and snapping a guy’s wrist in the next. She winks and tells him about drinking her dates under the table, and Mick is surprised that the usual wariness of people who talk to him like that doesn’t creep in. He feels… not safe, not by a long shot, and not completely relaxed either, but freer than he’s felt in a long time, and so he drinks with her and doesn’t mind when her elbow brushes his as they lean against the counter.

But he also can’t shake the wistful feeling buzzing in the background that he would like to see Haircut in her place, see him throw back 19th century hooch and splutter until he turns red in the face. Of course, the guy’s got better plans, becoming the Sheriff and the hero of the town, and it only stings a little to see Snart backing him up without so much as a word. That used to be Mick right there on the frontlines, with Snart’s terrifying brain getting him out safely – it feels like lifetimes away, and it is, for Mick, but he still wonders at the speed _Snart_ has forgotten all that.

A few days later, Snart’s dead, and Mick doesn’t quite know how to feel about that. He didn’t even think the guy cared enough to do something so foolish, and Mick is half-convinced that it was Snart’s newfound love for the role of a hero that convinced him to do what he’s done, not any lingering regret about how he fucked up Mick’s life by leaving him stranded in time.

The whole thing leaves an unpleasant pressure right behind Mick’s breastbone, anyway, and he can barely bring himself to grunt a response when one of the crew addresses him. They don’t do it much, so he’s left alone to stew in his own unresolved _whatever_. That is, until Haircut saunters into Mick’s room one day, holding out a bottle as a peace offering.

It’s good stuff – not the top-shelf, assholes-in-suits good, but _real_ good, the kind that hurts worse going down than whatever it is a man’s trying to wash away. Mick takes a long swig before even acknowledging Haircut’s presence, and even then it’s only to glare at him.

He can’t get rid of the memories of Raymond standing there like some stupid cartoon hero, spouting off nonsense about wanting to make a difference by sacrificing his own life to save a group of selfish dicks who call themselves a ‘team’. Mick doesn’t know what possessed him to slam the butt of his gun into that pretty head and take his spot, but he’s also trying hard _not_ to know.

Haircut’s making it that much harder by showing up with that soft, pitying look in his eyes, invading Mick’s space like he’s got a right to demand anything.

“Fuck off,” Mick tells him half-heartedly, but even Pretty Boy must hear there’s no real bite in it, because he makes himself at home on Mick’s bed, not close enough for them to touch, but close enough for Mick to feel unsettled by the proximity.

“I know what it feels like to lose someone you love,” Raymond says quietly. Mick bristles, more out of habit than real offense.

“What the fuck’re you saying, Haircut?”

He and Snart, they weren’t like that, and the implication twists Mick’s stomach, igniting the fight-or-flight-but-mostly-fight instinct that’s always simmering underneath his skin. Raymond’s big brown eyes grow bigger, and he waves his hands around frantically for a moment:

“I didn’t mean- of course not, it’s just. You don’t have to be _in_ love with someone to love them, right? And… with what he did…”

Haircut falls silent afterwards, like he thinks saying ‘he died for you’ will somehow erase the truth of it, like the words will hurt Mick more. It’s ridiculous, and thoughtful, in that weird way Mick was never good with. He finds himself appreciating the gesture and rebelling against the kindness at the same time.

“He didn’t do it for me,” he sneers, shaking his head before gulping down the booze until he can pretend that the sting in his eyes and nose is the tequilla’s fault, “Snart always had to be in the spotlight. Couldn’t pass up the chance to be the ultimate hero of the day.”

It’s bitter and mean and ugly, and it probably says a lot about Mick that he does feel better after saying it out loud. Raymond’s stare burns holes into the side of Mick’s face, but he still doesn’t expect it when Pretty Boy pipes up after a moment of tense silence.

“Is that why you did it, too?”

Mick’s eyes snap to the other guy without much thought, and he frowns, his brain sluggish and reluctant to provide answers. He’s never been the one with a witty retort at the tip of his tongue, after all.

“No,” he grunts, bluntly and too honestly. Raymond’s face does that soft, pleased thing and Mick desperately wants to prevent it from getting worse. “I just wanted to be the one to send the whole damn place to hell.”

It’s not untrue: his memories of the Vanishing Point mostly include white-hot, searing pain, brainwashing or plain torture, training and augmentation and sped-up recovery after a mission gone wrong.  

Raymond looks like he doesn’t believe him, and Mick’s got no way of convincing him, so he drinks and ignores Haircut’s presence at his side, even if the guy doesn’t leave long after the booze is gone.

In fact, he doesn’t leave for months at end, silently stepping to Mick’s side when they leave the Waverider, finding something to chatter about as he sits down at the table where Mick’s eating, or just quietly existing within ten feet from Mick until it becomes difficult not to get used to Haircut’s presence.

The rest of the team notice, of course. Sometimes they make comments about it, or tease Raymond about choosing the wrong person to get attached to, joke about Mick being a wild dog and Haircut not being experienced enough to tame him. The remarks leave Mick’s stomach sour and his reactions gruff and violent, more so than usual. The rest of the crew leaves off after a few weeks, all of them having their own shit to handle, and Mick’s grudgingly grateful, mostly because he did not enjoy the hurt looks Raymond kept shooting his way when Mick would react with something biting or downright cruel.

He still doesn’t feel like he fits in, but he’s learning to fall into place around Raymond, and it’s surprisingly comfortable, after a while. Haircut makes a mean burger, even though he stuffs it full of green crap that tastes like grass, or shit, or both. Haircut also doesn’t have a problem with Mick not saying anything back for days on end, or with Mick getting cookie crumbs and candy wrappers everywhere. He’s guileless and warm almost to the point of being stupid with kindness, but he shows enough sharp intellect and determination not to cross that line, and Mick realizes he’s let his guard down around Haircut when he finds himself dozing off in the guy’s room, the quiet buzz and scrape of Raymond’s suit in the background as the guy works on it.

The look on the man’s face when he loses that suit, even as he tries to soldier through it with a fake smile plastered on his face, prompts Mick to give up the one thing he’s been guarding with viciousness he can’t explain. He still hasn’t quite forgiven Snart, but he still finds himself missing him something fierce, getting angry about missing him, and then missing the way Snart used to untangle Mick’s thoughts for him sometimes, without Mick having to say a word. Giving up the cold gun is no easy feat, but the look in Raymond’s eyes is worth it.

Haircut handles the gun like a revered idol, like he’s reading more into the gesture than it’s really worth. It sets Mick’s teeth on edge, and he doesn’t really know how to explain that he doesn’t want Haircut to _become_ Snart Two: he just wants Raymond to fill the space that Snart’s death has left. A part of him, even though he’d never admit it, wants to secure Raymond before the guy runs off to have a picture-perfect life with some girl; Mick doesn’t like the way his lungs constrict and his stomach clenches when he catches Raymond laughing with Amaya or sitting hunched over a tablet with her, explaining something about social media or silly cat pictures or whatever it is they’re actually talking about.

And that ugly jealousy scares the hell out of Mick, because for some six months, he’s been telling himself that he was just trying to replace Snart with Raymond, trying to whip Raymond into the shape of a partner he could work with. But Mick’s never felt like this about Snart, never wanted to burn something when Snart would flirt with some pretty girl (or boy, on occasion). He’s grown attached to Raymond in ways he can’t explain or understand or _accept_ , because he simultaneously wants things from Haircut and doesn’t want so, _so_ many others that it doesn’t make any sense at all.

His own conscience starts mocking him in the shape and voice of Leonard Snart, whenever Mick holes himself up in the kitchen with a sixpack of beer while everyone else is sleeping. Mick can’t be sure what Snart would say about this unhealthy obsession with Haircut, because it’s never happened to Mick before. He used to be good at keeping his distance, and if he was ever lonely, late at night, the melancholy was easily chased away with a beer or two. That same recipe for sanity doesn’t seem to be working this time around, and Mick doesn’t have any other ideas how to brace against the power of Raymond’s blinding smile.

He wishes he could use fire as an escape route, but the pyromania has been largely beaten-slash-augmented out of him at the Vanishing Point, and it doesn’t burn brightly enough in his mind now to erase everything else, in that blissful, terrifying way it used to. And what’s worse, Mick catches Haircut looking, sometimes, with that thoughtful frown on his face like he’s trying to figure out some 23rd-century tech piece. It starts happening after the whole White House fiasco where Raymond nearly blows himself up while diffusing that bomb and Mick, acting on instinct, doesn’t even consider leaving his side. That’s what ‘partners’ means for Mick, through thick and thin, sitting next to each other in a prison cell or at the end of the world.

He’s not sure their… _thing_ means the same for Raymond, but then again, it didn’t mean the same for Snart, no matter how Mick tried to tell himself otherwise. Maybe he’s just no good at picking partners – or maybe his version of partnership is too weird, too intense for other people.

But the way Raymond looks at him now makes Mick’s insides clench with apprehension. He’s never seen Haircut with anyone but girls, though Mick has learned in his long life that it doesn’t necessarily mean anything definite. But he still can’t untangle the messy knot of the things he wants and things he hates, and dragging Raymond into it just because Mick wants him close-just-not-that-close would be madness.

So he pulls back, slaps away Raymond’s hand where he used to let it land on his shoulder, grunts and growls where he reluctantly answered before, and he sees Haircut taking a step back from Mick and gravitate towards Pretty Two. They have more things in common, both of them sciencey dorks and popculture aficionados, sharing that rambling, manic energy that Mick’s never quite understood. It stings, not unlike the way it did when he saw Snart trading easy, smart-ass quips with Sara, but this time around, it leaves Mick feeling tight and unhappy for longer.

He feels exhausted all the time now, and it’s not physical either: he can throw a punch or run for his life when it’s needed, but it feels like going through the motions automatically, taking Sara’s orders and not even turning them over in his mind before his body’s moving. The sneering visions of Snart keep haunting him, telling him all those dark things that Mick doesn’t dare think for himself but feels to his very core: he’s gone soft and stupid, he’s made all the wrong choices, and he’s got no way out now, no way but _down_.

That’s ultimately why he can’t resist the lure of the Spear. The rest of the team think it’s because it was Snart asking, because Mick cannot be anything else but Snart’s dog to the very end. The truth is, he’s tired of being tired, of punching when he’s told to and then going back to that ship, wanting nothing more than to get drunk and sleep, preferably for a few years, until that persistent soreness somewhere in his heart dies down.

He thinks that the Spear will change it, but all it does is make it clear that the problem isn’t so much with the world as it is with Mick himself. He’s no less tired when Snart, or Thawne, are the ones barking orders; no less tired when he blasts Snart’s gun out of his hand to save Nate’s stupid ass. The pressure behind his breastbone eases a little when the light of recognition sparks in Haircut’s eyes and he throws a pretty damn good punch, knocking Mick back, but it doesn’t dissipate completely until hours later, when he feels ice tearing through his chest and hears Raymond call his name.

Voice shrill and breaking, Raymond screaming like he _really_ gives a fuck, and Mick thinks it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard.

 _I hope the other me will make it right_ , he thinks before his consciousness fades out.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://pheuthe.tumblr.com/)


End file.
